Last year a U.S. District Court struck down the Delaware law saying all state court judges must be members of a party entitled to a primary. In Delaware, no party other than the Democratic or Republican Parties has ever been entitled to a primary. Primary parties must have registration of at least 5% of the total.

The Delaware government hopes to persuade the Third Circuit to reverse the U.S. District Court and uphold the law. Here is the opening brief filed by the state. The case is being expedited and all briefs will be filed by August 31.

July 19 is the Michigan deadline for independent candidate petitions. Christopher Graveline, a well-qualified independent candidate for Attorney General, brought about 18,000 signatures into the office, but his filing was rejected because it was below the required 30,000 signatures. See this earlier article about Graveline.

No independent candidate for any statewide office in Michigan has ever successfully petitioned, except for Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2004. The state did not even have statutory procedures for independent candidates until 1988.

It is possible Graveline will file a lawsuit to overturn the ballot access law. Courts have been virtually unanimous that independent candidate petition deadlines can’t be earlier than the date of the primary, and Michigan’s primary is August 7.

Other states this year in which highly-qualified independent candidates for statewide office have tried and failed to get on the ballot are Arizona, Indiana, and Texas.

On July 18, the California Supreme Court removed Proposition 9 from the ballot. This is the initiative to split California into three states. See this story.